


Elegie (extended from the Random Song Meme v 2.0)

by LadyRedCrest (your_icequeen)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU - post pool, But not really since we all know he lived, Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_icequeen/pseuds/LadyRedCrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: Elegie (extended from the Random Song Meme v 2.0)<br/>Summary: How John copes with Sherlock being gone.<br/>Rating: R for language on this first part.<br/>Pairings: Sherlock/John preslash<br/>Warnings: Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Character Death (in the Reichenbach Falls kinda way)<br/>Spoilers: Some from canon and some from s1.<br/>Disclaimer: I make no monies off of this, trust me, people don’t pay me to write this or anything else. And if I can't carry John and Sherlock around in my pocket forever, then I might as well give them back.<br/>Beta: xixie<br/>Transferred from LJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: With May 4th being the anniversary of Reichenbach Falls, I wanted to do something along those lines. And this is for violetbruises, since talked me into the extended version. I know it is now the 5th for some of you but I am just making the deadline for those of us in the US. Hehe.

For days John drifts in and out of consciousness, but he can’t tell the difference between the chemically induced dreams and reality. Sometimes there are images from the pool, sometimes Afghanistan, other times there is Sherlock. Sherlock sitting by his hospital bed or pacing across the room, or even once having a heated argument with Mycroft barely above a whisper.

When he is finally coherent, though still groggy and a little unable to focus on things in the room, the person waiting for him is Mycroft.

“Wrong Holmes.” He chokes out, obvious that he hasn’t been using his vocal cords for some days.

Suddenly, there is a straw at his mouth. He sips the cool water, knowing that if he gulps it down he’ll make himself sick.

“Sherlock?” He asks looking up at Mycroft.

“You need to focus on getting better, John.” Mycroft responds with an attempt at a kind smile.

That is John’s first clue that something is wrong. The second is that Mycroft rarely calls him ‘John’.

“Don’t bullshit me. Where’s Sherlock?” The heart monitor speeds up sounding almost as anxious as he feels.

“I’m afraid my bother didn’t make it from the pool...” He continues to talk but John isn't listening. The white noise in his head is louder than it has ever been. Even louder than when he got shot or following any of his nightmares.

He closes his eyes and lets the morphine take him again.

‘Maybe this is another dream,’ he thinks to himself hopefully.

***

When John wakes again the room is blessedly empty. There are flowers on the table next to him but he doesn’t care enough to read the card. His mind recalling the conversion with Mycroft, going over it in his head, looking for tells that he was lying. But John can’t find any.

‘Sherlock’s gone.’ It sounds wrong in his head but his heart breaks all the same. That glorious man who gave him his life back, the one who seemed to know him almost better than he knew himself. The man that he loved... Gone. And there is nothing that John can do. A doctor and a soldier and he couldn't even save his one true friend.

John curled onto his side, the best he could still attached to the machines, and cried until he fell asleep.

***

This time the doctor wakes him. John is still in a daze. He remembers to answer the questions and tries to look relieved when they tell him he gets to go home but part of him doesn’t really want to go back to Baker Street.

He signs the appropriate forms, takes the bottle of pills from the hospital’s chemist and gets a cab.

A cab.

He can’t even take a cab without thinking of Sherlock. Thinking of that first night on their way to Lauriston Gardens. Knowing he should be angry at how Sherlock had just aired his dirty laundry but all he could think was how brilliant that mind worked. And how he was falling for the man since they met at Bart’s, but this moment was when he acutely felt affection.

John tries to chase away both the thoughts of Sherlock as well as the knot that is forming in his chest. It is almost a relief when the cab comes to a stop.

Almost.

Then he remembers where he is. Standing outside of 221B, John sighs and stares up at the flat. He secretly hopes to hear the sound of the violin from the window, but knows he will not. He considers going for a walk just to put off the inevitable or find another place to stay. But he doesn’t want to do that. Doesn’t want to leave the only place he has considered home since he was a child.

He unlocks the door silently and practically sneaks up the stairs. He can’t deal with anyone today, especially Mrs. Hudson who will mother him. John can’t face that right now, the sympathy and the pity.

Climbing the stairs, he bypasses the sitting room and heads straight to his bedroom. He removes his jumper and trousers, and wonders if he can avoid the rest of the flat forever. But he knows that the need for tea will win out in the end.

‘Tea.’ He thinks, ‘that is what I need.’

Now in boxers and an old army tee shirt he pads down to the kitchen. The sight of the chemistry set and the sundry evidences of the Moriarty case stop him in his tracks.

‘Fuck tea.’ He walks to the cabinet, pulling down a glass and the bottle of whiskey, then takes them both to where his laptop is still on the desk where he left it on that fateful evening.

John can’t decide whether he should put something in his blog or just delete the thing all together. He opens the lid and finds that the browser is on the home screen for his email. Logging in he finds more messages than he wants to deal with bit one catches his eye. Unable to stop himself, he clicks on it.

_from: sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk_  
to: john_watson@gmail.com  
date: May 4, 2011  
subject: My dear John 

_I’m writing this just in case I don’t make it back from the pool tonight. I feel I owe you some explanation._

_First, I’m pleased that after tonight the world will be rid of Moriarty. I do enjoy the game, John, I always have. I appreciate his abilities much like someone would appreciate a fine expensive wine. This is one of those delicacies that you indulge in once or twice in a lifetime. I fear the cost though, my dear John, the pain that you will feel if this does not end well. Which I admit, is highly possible._

_Second, I knew I was meeting him when I let you leave this evening. I need you to be safely away from this final meeting. No man could have hoped for a better friend or better partner than you, John Hamish Watson._

_As for my possessions, they are yours now. By the time you read this Mycroft will have all the pertinent information._

_I hope you will forgive me and believe me to be, my dearest friend, very sincerely yours,  
SH _

John reads the email a second and then a third time, hits print and refills his glass.

There’s a knock on the door below, but he ignores it. John can think of only one person he wants to come through it but knows that isn’t going to happen. Eventually the knocking stops and John walks to the window, glass in hand, in just enough time to see Lestrade get back into his squad car and drive away.

He sits on the couch, refills his glass and reads the email again.

***

Days or weeks could have passed, John doesn’t know. He has stopped returning anyone’s calls and barely gets dressed except to go to Tesco or to the clinic. He wouldn’t have even gone back there if Sarah had not caught him as he was walking back to the flat.

But he goes diligently seven days a week now, always on time, always freshly showered, always sober. Pretending to be, not alright, but better. Handling his patients as he always did, though now will a little less patience than he had before. Anyone who saw him at work would think he was just depressed. They wouldn’t think about how his life had changed outside of these white stucco walls.

At first, John tries to hide all the empty bottles. He knows that Mrs. Hudson sometimes comes up to check on things during the day while he is away. Leaving the occasional casserole on the counter. Tsk-ing at the fact that he still has not moved or put away any of Sherlock’s things.

Every evening on the way back to Baker Street he stops and picks up a bottle or three of something nice. Tonight, it is Sherlock’s preferred wine.

His mood during the first bottle of the evening is what he considered ‘normal’ at this point. It relaxes him enough to shake off the day at the clinic.

The second gets him thinking as he pulls out the now worn and creased email.

_I feel I owe you some explanation._

‘And I owe you some too.’ He thinks to himself. ‘But I will never get to make them. You will never know how I feel... felt about you, Sherlock. Though I guess you knew it the night at Angelo’s. I am sure you could tell it then. Married to your work and all.’

_I knew I was meeting him when I let you leave this evening._

‘And like some idiot, you went alone.’

_I need you to be safely away from this final meeting._

‘And I walked straight into his trap. I couldn’t even keep you safe and you didn’t run. Why didn’t you run, Sherlock?”

The tears begin to flow again but they are quickly soothed by anger. Because John is angry.

Angry with himself that he was a distraction to Sherlock at the pool. Angry that he could not take out Moriarty before the detective got there. He knew he should have tried harder. Angry that Sherlock had been so stupid to set up the meeting in the first place. But most of all, he is angry for being abandoned.

Rationally, John knows that people don’t choose to die. However, that is what it feels like sometimes. And now John is stuck in this flat, in this city, surrounded by memories, sometimes still hearing Sherlock’s violin or steps on the stairs, even though he knows they aren’t there. He has left him to deal with all of this, and deal with it alone. To watch as the world becomes a darker place because Sherlock was not in it. Forcing him to fill his hours with placating hypochondriacs rather than chasing Sherlock chasing criminals. To try and predict fortune cookies by himself. For making him pick up this fucking bottle in the first place.

Before he realizes what he is doing, John is up and across the room sweeping the chemistry set onto the floor. The few flasks that don’t shatter on contact he picks up and throws at the fridge, the cabinet, the door.

The third bottle of wine goes through one of the recently replaced windows. And John crumples onto the tile.

He knows he should care that he is sitting in glass. He also knows, he should answer the door that Mrs. Hudson is pounding on. But all he can do is sit there and cry.

“What have I done?” asking the empty room between sobs.

Mrs. Hudson’s stopped banging, ‘probably to get the spare key,’ John thinks to himself before he hears a different tread up the stairs.

Suddenly, John is being put in the shower, clothes still on.

“Damn it, John. What are you doing?” Lestrade asks him, turning on the cold water full blast.

He could attempt to fight him. And even being as drunk as he is, with the military training behind him, John knows he would win easily. But he doesn’t have it in him.

Instead he lets Greg man-handle him into dry clothes and onto the couch. Mrs. Hudson is sweeping up the glass.

John thinks he should tell her that he will clean it up but doesn’t know if he voices that thought or not. He sits there feeling as he did when Mycroft initially gave him the news, or when he pried the news out of Mycroft.

He looks down at his hand and sees he is holding a glass of water.

“Who gave me water?” he asks, not expecting an answer.

Lestrade sits down on the coffee table in front of him and starts to check him for shards of glass. John knocks his hands away.

“I’m fine.”

“Obviously, you’re not fine. You just destroyed the kitchen and the window. Not adding to it that you would have been brought up on charges if that bottle had hit anyone. Luckily, I was still at the station when the call came in and the desk operator recognized the address.”

“It won’t happen again.” John promises badly and they both know the lie when they hear it.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” He says, helping John to stand and leading him up to the bedroom. John catches Mrs. Hudson’s eye as he leaves, she smiles at him timidly.

John waits until the DI is gone and then creeps down the stairs, slipping into Sherlock’s room without her noticing.

He just needs to be near Sherlock tonight. To apologize for what he has done. But there is no Sherlock. There’s his room, the way that John always saw it when he would occasionally get a peek. A chest of drawers on one wall with bookshelves on the others. Case boxes here and there. The double bed unmade, exactly how Sherlock had left it.

John collapses onto the bed and breathes in the smell of chemicals, shampoo and Sherlock. All of these things are recognizable as ‘Home’ to John. For the first time since he has returned from hospital, he dreams, not of Sherlock dying. But of him shooting the walls, smiling at the thrill of a new case and giggling with John as if they were school children. Something that is infinitely more cruel in John’s mind, dreaming of him living.

***

He hates himself when he is working. Mostly because it is the only time he is sober. It gives him time to look at what he has become and what he is doing. He has become his sister. No, scratch that, he has become his father. Harry Jonathan Watson.

Harriet was at least a fun drunk before she got moody and then tired. John, as he was learning, went straight from relaxed to violent. In medical school and even in the army that had not been his response. But it is now and he knows it should scare him.

His therapist would probably say that his self destructive pattern was self inflicted punishment for feeling he failed Sherlock. And she would be right. John both knows and accepts this.

But he also knows something else too. That he rips his mind to shreds when he is clear-headed enough to think. Those are the nights that he finds himself going for a walk instead of the bottle. Sometimes he just needs to beat himself up some, mentally.

‘Probably a good thing I don’t have kids.’ he thinks to himself as he walks out the clinic doors. He takes a detour, one he takes at least once a week, sometimes more when he needs it, and passes into the cemetery. His feet find the way without him having to think about it.

Soon he is standing in front of a simple grey stone. There were no fancy embellishments, only a single quote, that John had requested the one time he talked to Mycroft at the hospital.

_SHERLOCK HOLMES_  
6 January 1976 - 4 May 2011  
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be truth.”  
There was one wilted branch of Forget-me-nots at the base of the stone. John had been searching for something else when he had come across them at the florists. He knows Sherlock would probably not have cared for flowers, but it made him feel better and isn’t that what cemeteries are all about? Making the living feel better.

For when the time came, John had bought the spot next to Sherlock. After all, it was a better use for the money Sherlock had left him than all the alcohol he was killing himself with. He had even picked out the matching stone.

He stretches out on the ground as if laying by Sherlock’s side and speaks to him as he always did.

“My beautiful idiot, I miss you. I know you aren’t here and if you were you would get tired of me repeating it, you always did hate that. But it is true. It’s always true. There is not a minute that goes by that I don’t think about you. About the pool and what I could have done differently to keep you safe.

“It’s been a year now. I know you knew the risks in going there that night. But the world needs you more than it needs me and I would have done anything to keep you in it. I would change places with you in a heartbeat, even now Sherlock.

“You wouldn’t have retreated into a bottle. You would have kept on being brilliant. Making the world a better place, because you did. Just for being in it and being you.

“What I wouldn’t do for just two minutes. Two minutes to tell you all the things I couldn’t How I have loved you from that first week. That I had been trying to ignore it because your friendship was better than nothing. How I didn’t know what I would do if you found out and told me to leave. Bugger, it’s the reason I went on the pull so much. To try to keep my feelings for you at bay.”

He stands and brushes himself off. The sun has gone down now, hours later then when he first walked through the gates. He leans over and kisses the top of the stone, a poor substitute for the real thing but it is all he’s got.

“I love you, Sherlock.” He whispers, turns and walks towards Baker Street. If he doesn’t surface soon, Mrs Hudson will have Lestrade out looking for him and he doesn’t want to deal with either of them tonight.

***

John stumbles out of Sherlock’s room. He sleeps there nearly every night but it is still inherently Sherlock’s.

He throws the empty gin bottle in the bin. He hates gin and hasn’t had it since his army days, but last night it seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t, he realizes as he searches the drawer for the Paracetamol. It takes him a moment to notice he isn’t alone in the flat.

In the sitting room, in Sherlock’s chair, is Mycroft.

“No one sits there.” John says sternly, trying to cover his mental chastisement about being snuck up on and allowing their flat to be invaded.

Mycroft ignores the comment.

“Doctor Watson, this has to stop.”

“It really doesn’t.” John replies finally finding the bottle. Cursing to himself because it is empty.

“What would Sherlock say?”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it Mycroft? He’s not here to say it.” John throws the empty bottle in the sink and turns to the stairs. “I have to go to work, get out.”

“No, you don’t. I took the liberty of finding you a replacement for a few days. Doctor Sawyer understood. Apparently, she has been trying to get you to take some time off for a while now. Sit down, John. We need to talk.”

“Talk? Now, after all this time? It’s been two and a half years, Mycroft. I haven’t seen you since the day before I left hospital. If you wanted something you should have come before now.” He says barely keeping his anger in check.

“That was my mistake. I did not realize how bad this had gotten. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re honoring my brother’s memory by slowly killing yourself and I will not have it.”

With that, Mycroft rises and walks out the door, while John goes and finds a nice bottle of scotch that he was saving for a special occasion. Well, this would do.


	2. Chapter 2

Another six months pass and John stops even trying to hide the bottles. He stops going to work too. The only time he leaves is to make his now more than weekly trip to the cemetery. Sometimes he even just stays out there over night. The bottle comes with him too. 

He masks it as drinking in Sherlock’s memory when he is there but really he knows the truth and he knows that Sherlock would too. Not that any of that matters now. 

He’s woken up in the hospital a couple of times. Alcohol poisoning. 

‘It’s almost funny that it has taken this long for that to happen,’ he laughs before checking himself out.

Mycroft barely makes good on his slightly veiled threat, he rarely steps in. John decides that he must still have the flat bugged though, or how would he keep ending up in hospital when he has pushed it too far.

However, John still finds him invading the flat and once at Sherlock’s graveside, where he just mentions how disappointed Sherlock would be if he could see him. That he didn’t give John his life back after Afghanistan to use it like this. 

John is always quick to point out that Sherlock didn’t give him his life back at all, but they both know that is his hurt psyche talking because that is exactly what he did.

And just once, John comes to in a low security rehab facility. But he just waits until no one is paying attention and walks out.

***

It must be around six o’clock when John wakes to noises in the kitchen. Someone is cleaning. He hears the bottles being thrown in the bin. By the sound of it, they have been at it a while. 

“Sod. Off.” He mumbles, disentangling himself from Sherlock’s sheets, grabs his half full rum and walks out. He has an idea of who is out there. The only person who disturbs him on purpose these days, since he has chased almost everyone else away. Even Lestrade had stopped calling.

He starts talking before he reaches the door.

“Mycroft. Get the fuck out.” He practically yells.

But it isn’t Mycroft in the kitchen, and he stops dead in his tracks.

“You’re surprised to see me,” the figure says turning around. 

The bottle slips from John’s hand and he collapses to the floor. The next thing John knows is grey mist swirling before his eyes and the taste of cold water on his lips. He must have fainted.

“My dearest John,” says the well remembered voice, “I owe you my apologies. I had no idea you would be so affected by my leaving.”

“Leaving? Sherlock, you didn’t just pop off to Tesco’s, you died.” John doesn’t even try to mask his hurt or his anger. He pushes Sherlock away from him and stands.

Still in yesterday’s clothes, he does the only thing he can think to do. He leaves for the pub.

People give him a wide breadth as he comes through the door, looking more like a homeless vet than a doctor. The last three years have not been kind to John. He orders a pint and then goes to sit at the booth in the corner, planning on keeping to himself.

The drinks keep coming and John remembers all the trips to the cemetery, begging for just two more minutes with Sherlock. Now he is here, and John has run away. 

After a few hours someone slips into the booth across from him. Neither of them speak at first, just taking in each other’s company once again.

Apparently, the time away hasn’t been good to Sherlock either, John notes. He is thinner than John remembers and paler too. His complexion speaks volumes about how unhealthy his life has been recently.

“You haven’t been eating.” John finally says, breaking the silence.

“The same can be said for you.” Sherlock replies with no malice or sarcasm. 

“John, loo-” Sherlock starts.

“I thi-” John cuts himself off quickly, “Go on then. You want to explain what was so important about this. And I should at least hear you out, right?” 

Sherlock sighs in relief, all but given the go ahead to try and fix this.

“My email to you was absolutely genuine. I didn’t expect to leave the pool that night. I didn’t die, as you can see John, in fact, I practically wasn’t hurt at all. Thanks to your actions, of course.” Sherlock pauses while watching for a reaction from John, he gets none.

“I went with you to hospital and once it was obvious that you were going to pull through, I made arrangements with Mycroft and left.”

“Mycroft knew.” John interrupts but isn’t surprised by this revelation. 

“Of course. I knew I would need his help at some point and of course access to untraceable bank accounts. And his part in all this was to supply what I needed and most of all, to keep you safe. Because that is why I did it. Moriarty might have been dead but there were too many in his enterprise that would try and enact revenge on me and they would have used you to do so. 

“I realized that fate had dealt me an extraordinary set of circumstances. If the world believed I was dead, then all those people would lay themselves open allowing me to take them down. 

“I admit that this took me longer than I intended when I left you, my dearest John. Several times, I have sat down to email or text you, but it was important for me to continue to be dead and any change in your demeanor might have brought that into question. 

“However, I did not know that this was happening.” He gestures to the pint that had showed up while they were talking. “Or I would have come back much sooner and risked the fall out.”

John’s face is still blank as Sherlock continues his tale.

“I asked Mycroft not to tell me anything that wasn’t necessary for survival while I was on the hunt. I knew I would not be able to work with the distractions. It was hard enough that I had you in my head wherever I went. I kept checking the blog and other than one initial post that I was dead, you never updated it. My one lifeline back to Baker Street and my John, and it was silent.” Sherlock looks lost for a moment as he waits for a response.

John sips his drink, and Sherlock doesn’t even try to hide his grimace. 

“You let me think you were dead to protect me? That is what you expect me to accept, Sherlock?” John’s voice is frightfully even.

Sherlock shrugs. 

“It is the truth. I did it all for you, for us. We would never be able to live in peace with what was left of Moriarty’s crew.”

“Sherlock, don’t even try that with me. You were being selfish. What did you think? That I would be too much of a hindrance, that you wouldn’t be able to do as much if there were two of us? Or is it the more likely option that you just were tired of me and wanted to do this alone? Couldn’t deal anymore with the ex-soldier with PTSD and psychosomatic limp?”

“No, that isn’t what I thought.” Sherlock quickly changes the subject. “Look, it’s obvious that I have hurt you. I’ll leave Baker Street. I’m sure that Mycroft can put me up for a few days until I find a place of my own...” He trails off.

“Leave Baker Street? You just got back.” John looks as if he was just slapped in the face.

“I am not going to make your life harder, John.”

“You’re an idiot if you think that going away again is going to make this easier on me. You can’t just walk back into my life after being dead for three years and then leave again...” John sighs, “Let’s go. This isn’t really a conversation for a pub.”

He pushes himself up from the table and drops enough bills to cover his tab. Together they walk back in silence.

***

The black car at the curb alerts them to Mycroft’s presence even before they reach the flat. Sherlock picks up the pace and practically runs up the stairs, taking them three at a time.

His brother is sitting in his armchair, twirling the infamous umbrella, when he comes through the door.

“Ah, brother, so good to see you have made it home safely. I admit, I expected at least a call. Mummy would have been so disappointed.” Mycroft says in the voice he always uses when he drops her name into conversation.

“And I expected you to look after John while I was away.” Sherlock spit back, invading his personal space. “You gave me your word, Mycroft.”

“He is fine. A little worse for wear but nothing happened to him while you were gone. There was a close call with a sniper once, but my men took care of it.” Mycroft seems completely at ease in all of this which only furthers in angering Sherlock even more.

Before he can respond, John reaches the top of the stairs just in time to hear Mycroft’s response.

“Excuse me, what? A sniper?” He asks, the concern seeping into his voice.

Both brothers ignore him.

“You call this fine? Look at him. Did you check on him even once while I was away? Or did you just figure that it was beneath you to keep tabs on him now that I wasn’t around?” Sherlock clenches his fists in obvious restraint to keep from punching his own brother.

A realization passes over Mycroft’s face for a split second before he quickly arranges his features back to neutral and stands, forcing Sherlock to take a step back.

“My apologies. I had no idea that you were in love with Doctor Watson, or I should have intervened more thoroughly.” He side steps Sherlock and walks out the door, not even waiting for the backlash.

The door slamming downstairs seems to draw John out of shock. 

“You’re in love with me?” He asks, just barely above a whisper.

Sherlock collapses into the chair that Mycroft just vacated and looks slightly distressed.

John also sits and prepares himself for a conversation he has had many times over the last three years. This time though, it seems to matter.

“Do you know what I said to you at the cemetery every time I went there?” 

Sherlock shakes his head.

“That if I had just a couple more minutes with you, I would tell you the truth. I’d tell you everything about how I felt, how I needed you more than breathing... that I love you.” John staring at Sherlock. This time it is his turn to wait for an answer that takes forever to come.

“Is that what you want, John? For there to be an us?” Sherlock doesn’t look up.

“Of course, if it is what you want.”

“You’re not Harriet and you’re not your father, but if you continue on this path then you will be. I’m not usually one for ultimatums but I need you to choose, my dearest John, this or me.” Sherlock looks up, finally making eye contact. 

John thinks about his answer carefully, feeling the heavy weight of Sherlock’s gaze. 

“You. I would take you over any of this. But I don’t know if I know how.” John reminds him of a lost child.

“I’ll help you but this is something you have to do for yourself and not me. There are meetings and things we can look into. I need you to promise me that you will try.” 

“You have my word.” John agrees.

Then tension is so thick in the flat that John grabs onto the first thought in his head. 

“You cleaned.” He says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Yes,” Sherlock pauses. “I threw everything out, all of the bottles you had around the flat, even my old stash of cocaine. The hardest substance here now is rubbing alcohol. 

“You were right, you know. I did do it for selfish reasons. But not the ones you named. I really did it because I needed to keep you safe. If anything had happened to you, I would have fallen apart too. Only, it would not have been alcohol, but drugs and a lot of them.”

John gapes at him a moment. Both contemplating the personal changes necessary to make this work.

[A/N: The epilogue is the boysex that I could not make a decision on whether it should be included. But this is me, and how often do I NOT write smut? If you want to story to end here then I would suggest skipping the next bit.]

***

EPILOGUE

3 months later...

John lays on his stomach on the bed. He has just about drifted off to sleep when a now familiar weight slides under the sheet next to him. 

“John?” Says a deep baritone voice into the crux of his neck. 

“Hmmm?” John responds as fingers begin to play with the waistband of his pants. 

“I’m bored.” Sherlock nips his shoulder lightly.

“And you’re waking me up because?” John asks, unable to keep the smile off his face.

“I thought you might prefer to entertain me, but if you’re busy I can always go back to that experiment with White Phosphorus.” Another nip, this time lower on his back.

John partially rolls over to see the other man. 

“How do you even have- Never mind. I don’t even want to know.” 

Sherlock pushes John back on his stomach and reaches to push down his pants. Then he straddles John’s thighs, leaning forward to lay his naked form along his back.

“You know, I could feign ignorance as to why you were naked when you crawled into bed, and why I’m naked now. “ John chuckles. 

“But you won’t.” Sherlock says with a roll of his hips, his erection teasing John’s entrance.

“I don’t think people appreciate what I do to keep you from blowing up the whole block.” John laughs as he passes Sherlock the lube from the drawer of the nightstand.

“Oh, so that’s why you do it?” Sherlock starts to roll off John, “then I will go play by myself.”

“Sherlock, if you don’t get back here and finish what you started, I’ll tell Mycroft we have agreed to come to the Family Holiday in September.” John threatens with a smirk.

“You wouldn’t!” Sherlock freezes his movements.

John looks over his shoulder at him. 

“I would you bloody cock tease.”

Sherlock resumes his position on John and leans down for an awkward over the shoulder kiss.

“If I didn’t love you...” He nips at John again as he slicks up two fingers.

Sherlock kisses, bites and lick’s down his spine and rubs the ridge of John’s opening, gently, teasing with just the tips of his fingers. John growls attempts to push back onto them.

“Pillow.” Sherlock says.

“What?” John asks, confused by the non sequitur. 

“Under your hips.” He says using his free hand to pass John the second pillow from the bed. 

“Oh.” John does as instructed. And from the quick glance Sherlock gets as John raises up on his hands and knees, he sees that John’s cock is dripping pre-come, even with the very little stimulation he has done. 

“For all your talk, John Watson, you really want this.” He finally works in one and then two fingers, crooking them slightly to occasionally hit John’s prostate. 

John moans with each push of Sherlock’s fingers. Never finding enough stimulation from either them or the pillow under him. 

Sherlock opens the lube again with his free hand and pours some out, spreading it on with strokes of his palm. 

Sherlock removes his fingers but quickly replaces them with his own cock and pushes into the slowly expanding muscle. 

He pushes into the hilt, then pulls all the way out and enters him again. He does this for a third time, before he decides to stop teasing John.

This time when he enters him, Sherlock changes his angle and hits John’s spot, causing him to cry out after all the almost stimulation he has been receiving. Sherlock repeats this over and over again, each time slightly hard and faster than before. 

He looks down and watches as he pulls out and thrusts back into John. And the sight mixed with the noises of complete debauchery that John is making is his undoing. 

Sherlock feels his balls contract as his vision begins to cloud around the edges. He loses his rhythm but continues to push into John as his orgasm takes him. And if this could not feel any better, John clenches around him, managing to come from prostate stimulation alone. 

When he can move again, Sherlock rolls off of John. 

His pillow will have to be washed now, so he convinces John to roll over by and lays with his head on his lover’s chest. 

“John?” He asks as John wraps his arm around Sherlock’s shoulders. 

“Yes?”

“How long was I gone when you broke my chemistry set?” Sherlock follows the question with a small kiss on John’s skin to soften the question.

“Honestly, I don’t know. But I promise, as soon as I find another job, Sherlock, I will buy you another one. If I have to get it one Erlenmyer flask at a time.” He kisses the curly mop and begins to drift off to sleep. 

“That won’t be necessary.” Sherlock says, not knowing if he means the chemistry set or the job, it’s kind of nice having John at home.


End file.
